A first trend in the field of computer use is that computers and peripherals are widely used in network architectures. Such network architectures are often provided by private or public organizations to their members, to allow shared access to a number of common resources.
These networks comprise at least one server to which several terminals and/or peripherals can be connected.
A second trend concerns portable laptop computers. Such laptop computers have become of common use. They allow increased mobility of the users of a network: for example, in the case of a network spread over several physical premises, a user can connect his laptop computer to the network while being physically located in any one of the premises covered by the network.
And instead of a laptop computer, the user can connect to the network with any portable (or even non-portable) terminal comprising an operating system and connection means to the network.
Such terminals can be any terminal (computer, but also electronic notebook or Personal Digital Assistant, etc . . . ).
In the present specification, the generic term of “terminal” will thus refer to any device as mentioned above. Preferably, the terminal is portable (even though the invention could be embodied with a fixed terminal).
In this context of network architecture and increased mobility, it is often desirable for a user to be able to connect his terminal to any given one of several peripherals of a network, for the purpose of transmitting to the peripheral an electronic output of data, which the user wishes to graphically edit on the desired peripheral.
Such graphical edition can result in the printing of a document if the peripheral has printing means (peripheral is e.g. a printer), or in any other form of graphical edition (edition of the output on the display of the peripheral, projection on a screen of the graphical image of the file, etc . . . ).
To enable the terminal of the user to transmit such output to the selected peripheral, and to enable the peripheral to perform the graphical edition, the terminal must be configured in accordance to the specific parameters of the peripheral.
With known methods and devices, this requires the loading, in the portable computer, of an adapted driver containing said specific parameters of the peripheral.
It is reminded that a driver is a piece of hardware and/or software which builds a link between a terminal and a peripheral, so as to allow files and/or data to be exchanged between the terminal and the peripheral.
Thus, if a use e.g. attending a meeting wishes to graphically edit a document stored in his terminal on a given peripheral (e.g. a printer located in the room), the terminal has to be configured in accordance to the specific parameters of this particular peripheral.
In the above example, the meeting room might well not correspond to the usual physical environment of the user.
And typically, the terminal of the user is not always configured in accordance to the specific parameters of the desired peripheral.
In such a case, to actually perform the graphical edition, the user has to load in his terminal the driver corresponding to the desired peripheral.
To allow the user to output data from his terminal to any peripheral of the network, a first possible solution would then be to load all the corresponding peripheral drivers in the terminal memory.
But this would rapidly become burdensome and complex to manage (the fleet of peripherals being not static, the drivers should therefore be regularly updated) especially in the case of a large network having a large number of possible peripheral) for a terminal connected to the network.
Furthermore, this would lead to an unjustified load in the terminal memory.
Another solution could then be to load a driver only when the corresponding peripheral is needed.
Yet, it is sometimes difficult to find the right driver at the required moment, especially in “real time” (during a meeting for example.)
Moreover, the loading of the driver is in any case a time consuming and burdensome operation.
Thus, it appears that there is a need for a solution allowing a user to select any desired peripheral of a network, and output data to this peripheral from the user's terminal.